1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a magnetic head support structure and a method of producing the same.
2. Prior Art
FIG. 5 is a plan view showing the construction of the principal portion of a magnetic disk device used in general. A magnetic head support structure 1 is assembled or produced by welding or fixing a thick base plate 2 mounted on a magnetic head arm, a load beam 3 in the form of a thin plate, and a gimbals spring 4 in the form of a thin plate for attaching a magnetic head slider. As shown in FIG. 4, in this magnetic head support structure 1, the base plate 2 is fixed to the front end of the swingably supported magnetic head arm 6, and the magnetic head slider 5 is bonded to the front end of the gimbals spring 4, thereby constituting the magnetic head. In addition, In FIG. 4, the numeral 7 denotes an actuator and CD denotes the magnetic head.
In the case where welding or crimping is employed as means for fixing the base plate 2, load beam 3 and gimbals spring 4, as described above, the assembling accuracy of the base plate 2, load beam 3 and gimbals spring 4 and the combined accuracy of the individual parts are cumulated, causing a problem that error in parallelism between parts, deviation of center or lengthwise deviation or twist as found in the completed magnetic head support structure exceeds the allowable limit. Therefore, the accuracy of the magnetic head support structure with respect to the magnetic disk CD lowers, with the result that the size of contact load on the magnetic disk CD varies, causing troubles to the reading of writing of information in accordance with the characteristics of the magnetic disk CD.
The aforesaid contact load is imparted by bending the load beam 3 and gimbals spring 4, and inequality of contact load is adjusted in the process subsequent to the assembling of parts. However, if such individual adjusting system is employed, additional processing steps, such as contact load adjustment, are required, adding to the number of processing steps, and the cost of magnetic disk devices soars.
Further, in assembling operation, in order to maintain the dimensional accuracy of the completed product within the allowable range, complicated positioning jigs are required, increasing the number of processing steps and making it difficult to save the installation cost.